Amy Schumer has made you laugh, smile and laugh some more. She’s one of the most popular comedians on the scene right now. She wrote and starred in Trainwreck this past summer and she won an Emmy for “Best Variety Sketch Series” for her show Inside Amy Schumer. Her HBO special Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo was a huge hit this past weekend, but she’s more than that. She’s also an important inspiration for women with regards to body image. With the present obsession with body-altering celebrities (I’m talking about you, Kardashians), we desperately need someone like her to look up to.
When people claim “Amy Schumer has balls!” she replies, “Nope. Well, at least the last time I went in for a Pap smear, my doctor didn’t mention anything. What I have is unbridled confidence. I am one of the lucky women in this country who can look in the mirror and like what I see.”
But this hasn’t always been the case. Amy’s mother raised her and instilled a great deal of confidence in her. On her first day of middle school, Amy was confident and ready for friends and boys to flock to her. Amy shares, “They told me, ‘Um, no, you’re gross!’ I thought, ‘What? But my mom thinks I am so pretty!’” Her confidence took a hit, only to be rebounded by her mother’s love and her decision that the others were wrong. She stared at herself in the mirror. “I am pretty, and I’m gonna be just fine. I marched into school the next day with twice as much confidence. I had found it in myself,” she said.
Throughout her career, she has used this confidence to succeed. After bombing night after night on Last Comic Standing during her third year of comedy, she told the crowd “You guys are wrong! That was funny.” This control and confidence then led her to very successful, less stressful shows, and ultimately her career took off.
Currently, Amy is partnering up with Goodwill to launch StyleFund.org, which “helps women create their individual style to step out into the world with confidence.” Amy admits to not always dressing the best for her body and simply wearing comfortable clothes to hide. It’s hard, she says, because sometimes she is a size six, but other times she’s a 12. While working on Trainwreck, her stylist helped her dress to fit her body. She hopes to provide the same to all women entering the workforce looking to dress confidently.
You can’t please everyone, no matter who you are. Amy accepts that everyone won’t like her, or find her jokes funny. But confidence is key. She finds her confidence to be the sexiest thing about her. Just like everyone in this world, she has days where she doubts herself. But when that happens, she tells herself, “You’re doing the best you can. Good job, b*tch!” Next time you are feeling insecure about your body, know that everyone else goes through the same thing, and let Amy’s confidence inspire you. Thanks, Amy, for being #confidencegoals.
Photo credit: www.theodysseyonline.com